A Very Thin Wire Between Survival and Disaster
by X-parrot
Summary: Tag to 11x17, "Red Meat" - gen - "So what did you take?" Sam asks. Because as it turns out, there are even worse things to think about than how your brother attempted suicide less than twenty-four hours ago.


_Previously posted on AO3, but this seems to be where the lion's share of SPN gen is, so. Adding to the pool._

 _I quit SPN back in season 7. This was a good time to get back into it. A really good time, for an h/c fan._

* * *

Sam starts to rouse when the Impala's engine shuts off, jerks fully awake at the slam of the driver's side door. He immediately regrets it, leans gingerly back against the seat. Blinking his eyes clear, he squints out the windshield, up at the illuminated motel sign.

He'd have thought Dean was in the mood to drive all night—he'd half-expected to wake up at the bunker—but it's only just twilight, the flickering neon green clashing against purple clouds. Sam sighs, then regrets that, too, breathes even and shallow through clenched teeth.

Dean gets back in a minute. He climbs into the driver's seat but doesn't start the engine, just sits, hands on the wheel and head rocked back against the seat, eyes closed.

"Dean?" Sam finally asks. "You get a room or what?"

Dean starts like he's coming out of a doze. "Oh, you're up? I was thinking I should've just saved on a single bed, if you were going to sleep through 'til Kansas."

"I wish," Sam says. Tries to straighten up again and winces. "Though an actual bed sounds pretty good."

"Coming right up." Dean turns the key, drives them down to the end of the parking lot. He's out of the car and around to the passenger side by the time Sam manages to leverage open the door, hooks his arm under Sam's elbow to help him up out of the seat.

"So where are we?" Sam asks, mostly to distract himself from the burning pull of the stitches under the bandage. The local anesthesia would've worn off hours ago and by now the pain pills have as well. He only took half the dose the doctor offered, palmed the rest. Dean was sure they'd taken out the whole werewolf pack, but just in case.

It's not as piercing a pain as actually being stabbed—doesn't rate more than a five, six maybe; not like he's paralyzed by it. But even without the bullet hole he's stiff after the drive, legs, shoulders, spine all locked up. He used to sleep more soundly curled against the car door than on any bed. Not so much for the last couple of years, and Sam doesn't know if that's due to passing thirty, or getting used to a mattress.

Either way, he lets himself lean on Dean, who doesn't say anything about it, just shifts the door key to his other hand to open their room and shuffle Sam inside. He sits Sam down on the nearer bed and goes back out to get their stuff.

It's a nicer place than their usual—not like there are mints on the pillows; but the mattress has firm springs and the bedspread is smooth cotton, not the static prickle of cheap polyester. Even though it's the middle of the week, so there should've been vacancies any place in town. Whatever town this is.

"Hollister, outside Twin Falls," Dean supplies, when he gets back.

"We're still in Idaho?"

Dean shrugs. "We'll get out early tomorrow, be back by nightfall." He tosses Sam's duffel to his bed, drops his own bag on the floor as he sinks down on the other bed with a catching breath.

"How are your ribs doing?" Sam asks.

" _My_ ribs?" Dean says, with an incredulous edge despite the hand pressed to his side. "They're great. What about the hole in your gut?"

"It's fine. Stitches holding, no swelling. A little sore, that's it."

"Shit," Dean says, "I left the meds in the car." He pushes himself up off the bed, moving slowly. Not just in deference to the cracked ribs; his shoulders are slumped with exhaustion.

There had been at least three drained coffee cups in the car, that Sam had noticed. But it had been a hell of a long night, and a long drive today.

Still, watching his brother's dragging footsteps, he wonders.

 _What did you do, Dean?_

Sam has never figured it out, if Dean is actually a lousy liar but can charm people out of noticing, or if Dean's just bad at lying to him. That Sam's seen it from all sides, the one lying with him and the one lied to.

What Dean is good at, however, is timing his lies. Slipping in the crucial fiction between the clear fabrications—answer a question too quickly, too obviously falsely, cutting things off before the most important question gets asked at all. So maybe it's not that Dean's gotten worse these days, but Sam's gotten better about what questions to ask.

 _"When you thought I was dead, what did you do?"_

Dean shambles back inside, locks the motel door and puts on the chain. He fills a plastic cup from the bathroom, measures out an assortment of pills from the prescription bottles and hands them over.

Sam swallows the antibiotic, then, after Dean's pointed look, the Vicodin. They're almost five hundred miles from the last known werewolf sighting, and besides, it's not nearly enough of a dose to knock him out.

Dean has collapsed back on his bed, slightly hunched over his ribs. He blinks at the carpet for a few seconds, then gives his head a shake, reaches for the folder of ad flyers on the nightstand. "Pizza?"

x x x

By the time the pizza guy arrives, the codeine is finally kicking in, enough that Sam can maneuver four slices of pepperoni and extra cheese into his mouth with only minimal discomfort. Dean gets through one piece, chewing and swallowing mechanically, then sits and picks pepperoni off his second without remembering to take a bite.

He doesn't fetch the beer out of the car, maybe is too tired to bother. Sam doesn't ask; he wouldn't drink it anyway, not with the meds. But Dean doesn't raid the minibar, either, and Sam wonders about that, too.

When he gets out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth, Dean is standing over at the window, curtain pushed aside. He drops the cloth when Sam comes out, casually turns around, slipping something into his pocket.

"Something out there?" Sam asks.

"Nah, just checking the sky. It's raining again."

"Uh-huh," Sam says, and walks past him to pull up the curtain. There's a row of sigils drawn along the bottom of the window pane in blue wax pencil. Sized small, his brother's loose Enochian scripting becomes cramped but precise, each shortened stroke at the exactly accurate angle. Sam's eyebrows go up. "Angel warding?"

"Better safe than sorry," Dean mutters, and ducks into the bathroom, leaving Sam to consider the motel room—a bit more upscale than usual, a little further off the highway. Somebody tracing the route of the Impala back to Kansas would be somewhat less likely to locate them here.

Sam's changed into his sweats and is in the careful process of climbing into his bed when Dean emerges, toweling off his hair. "I'm probably paranoid," he says.

"Probably," Sam agrees. "We are still concealed, you know." The doctor had showed him the X-rays of his marked ribs just this morning. Sam hadn't even bothered trying to explain, and she hadn't pressed him. "Besides, if—" but _Cas_ is wrong, and _Lucifer_ stops at his lips, "—if he was looking for us, it's not like he doesn't know our address. He's got other things on his plate now."

"Yeah," Dean says, not like he's convinced, but like he's trying to convince Sam he is.

Lucky for him, Sam is too tired to push him on it. "Unless there's some reason he might be onto us now," Sam says, on the off-chance Dean is suddenly in the mood to talk. But Dean is too busy yawning, and Sam is happy to take the hint. It takes him a cautious minute to lower himself down on the mattress, his wounded abdomen protesting each inch. But once he finally drops his head into the pillow, he's out by his third breath.

x x x

Sam comes awake in darkness, disoriented, side throbbing. He lies still for a moment, catching his breath from his initial, unremembered gasp, groping for the context to memorize his dream—a woman, holding his hand, pointing out at the horizon, _Look, Sam, just look at the sunset, for once_ ; someone he knew, who he loved, Jess, or Amelia, or—but it's gone before he can focus.

The glaring digits of the bedside alarm clock mark the time as just past midnight. Their green glow illuminates the empty bed opposite—blankets tangled, but Dean's not among them.

Sam sits up too quickly, shudders and wraps one arm around his torso. Before his pulse can really start pounding he realizes the bathroom door is closed, a glimmer of light leaking out underneath.

Snorting at himself, he lays back down. With the thudding heartbeat in his ears subsiding, he can hear the low murmur of Dean's voice through the bathroom door. He holds his breath to listen, barely making out the words, _"Yeah, Doc, thanks for letting me know. Listen, I'm sorry we left you to clean up that mess—_

 _"—No, that's cool, I wanted to know._

 _"—Yeah, Sammy's fine._

 _"—Okay, Doc, I'm going to stop you there. This is what you're going to do now—you're going to go home. You're going to pour yourself a double of your favorite booze—_ _Zaya Gran Reserva? Nice—and put on the trashiest thing on your Tivo. And watch it with all the commercials, no fastforwarding. Yeah, infomercials are required. Then you're going to set your alarm and go to bed. And tomorrow when you get up, werewolves are still going to be real, but you're still going to be alive._

 _"—No problem. I owe you anyway, for, you know—_

 _"—Just a headache, and tired, like you said. Nothing else that you told me to watch out for—"_

 _"—Yeah, no, won't be trying that again anytime soon. Hopefully—_

 _"—Sure thing. In that case, Dr. Kessler—okay, Deborah. If you ever need help with anything, you got my number. —Good. Take care of yourself, Deborah._

 _"—Yeah, I hope I never see you again, too."_

The bathroom door creaks open, and Sam shuts his eyes against the flood of light, faint orange under his lashes and then it clicks off. He listens to Dean's footsteps, stumbling slightly in the sudden dark, crossing to his bed. Then stopping, turning, getting nearer only to halt.

A heartbeat, then two, then Dean's voice breaks, harsh and loud in the still room, "Sammy?"

He just heard Dean; Dean was relaxed, chuckling; Dean was fine—but that forced bark makes Sam jump, eyes snapping open as he reaches for the pistol under his pillow. "What?"

" _God_ ," Dean says; just an expletive, not an invocation, in an explosive gasp. "You were—you just—I couldn't hear you breathing, Sam."

Sam uncurls his fingers around the butt of the gun, slides out his hand to roll himself over on his arm, weight on his good—better—side. In the clock's green glow, Dean is sitting on the edge of his bed opposite Sam, head hanging down as he runs one hand over his hair.

"I was—" Eavesdropping? Listening in? Had Dean been trying to keep that conversation private, or just avoiding waking Sam? "I was breathing shallowly. Side was hurting." That was true, at least.

Dean hauls himself up. First he checks the sigils on the window by the light of his phone's screen, then he gets another cup of water.

He shakes out three pills from the painkiller bottle this time. Sam takes all three; the room's warded, and they won't be heading out for another five hours at least. Maybe more, by how Dean collapses back on his bed, heavily, listing to the side until he catches himself on one arm. He keeps his head up, though, watching Sam, eyes glinting green reflections of the clock's changing digits.

"So," Sam says, when he's finished the water. "Dr. Kessler took care of the official incident reports?"

"Sounds like she had a time and a half with the county coroner, but yeah, it's all worked out," Dean says. "And she deleted our medical records while she was at it. X-rays and everything."

And what was in those medical records, besides their sigil-etched ribs? What symptoms had the doctor told Dean to watch out for? Broken ribs, concussion, that's nothing new for them. But Dean's exhaustion now, the weighted drag of his footsteps. Barely twilight but he'd been too tired to drive.

"What?" Dean's frowning at him now in the dark, as if Sam's silence is the annoying one. "Something wrong?"

"If I ask again," Sam says, "would you answer? Or just blow me off again?"

Dean's breath catches, stutters. Finally lets go in a sigh, as he reaches over to switch on the bedside lamp. "Man, just trust me, this is not the problem. Not the one we have time for now."

Sam blinks through the red afterimages as his eyes adjust. "Then what is?"

Dean's head is raised but he's looking past Sam. To the window, the sigils behind the curtain. "You weren't dead."

"I know, Dean—"

"No—you weren't dead, Sam, but you should've been. I was there, I saw you. Whatever the doctor said about shock, your body shutting down—you had one foot in the grave and were lifting up the other one."

Dean's voice is shaking, only just. "I know, Dean," Sam says again, more gently.

"But you didn't die," Dean says, not triumphantly. "You didn't even come close to dying—you were shot and bleeding out, but a reaper didn't come for you. You didn't even make it onto their roll call."

Sam goes still. "How'd you know a reaper didn't come? You weren't there." Not that Dean could've seen anything anyway. He hadn't been shot, all his blood in his veins where it belonged.

Dean hesitates, and Sam can't tell whether he's bracing himself or preparing a deflection. Not until Dean says, "Billie mentioned it."

"You talked to Billie," Sam said. "The reaper, Billie." Not because they know that many Billies, but he needs the space to process.

There are summoning spells to bring a reaper, but the rituals are inconsistent at best. More to the point, they don't carry all the necessary ingredients in the trunk. If Dean had even had the car, which he hadn't.

There is one reliable way to speak to a reaper, however.

"She told me you weren't dead," Dean says. "That your number hadn't come up."

"So that's how you knew?"

Dean's gaze momentarily slides away from Sam's. "Once she told me. Yeah."

"And before?" Sam asks. "Before you talked to Billie, and she told you I wasn't dead?"

Dean shakes his head. "That's not the point—"

"Pretty sure it is, Dean—"

Turned from the lamp, Dean's green eyes look near black. "No, the point is, you were bleeding out, Sam. There should've been a reaper waiting for you, Billie or somebody else. But there wasn't. Which means you weren't actually dying. Weren't even close. And you could say we just got lucky, but man..."

"We are never that lucky," Sam finishes for him. Slowly, careful of the stitches under the bandage, he turns to look over his shoulder at the window. The curtain hides the sigils, but he feels a little better knowing they're there.

Only a little. But it's better than nothing.

He takes the deepest breath he can manage, lets it go. "So you think that—"

"Don't." Dean puts up his hand. "Don't say it—you don't have to think about it, Sammy. It could be just like the doctor said, that you were in shock but not really in danger. Hell, maybe luck is on our side for once. We're due for it, I'd say."

Except you don't ward a hotel room against random fortune. And there's a fallen archangel abroad right now, who would have the power to keep Sam breathing—and might have the motivation to as well, if he's becoming frustrated with his current vessel.

Lucifer had been aiming to kill Sam before, though. Unless that had been a ploy, and Sam probably shouldn't be hoping that the devil really wanted him dead. Trying to hope.

Or maybe Dean's just paranoid. Paranoia's sounding really good to Sam, right about now.

(It's not paranoia if they really are—)

"So what did you take?" Sam asks. Because as it turns out, there are even worse things to think about than how your brother attempted suicide less than twenty-four hours ago.

Dean allows the change of the subject. Almost sounds relieved, to say, "Nothing with any long-term side effects. It should be all out of my system by tomorrow, no permanent damage."

" _Death_ is pretty permanent, Dean." Especially now, if Billie had anything to say about it.

"I was in a medical clinic; there was a doctor right there," Dean says. "Michelle brought her in as soon as I went down."

"Michelle—you had the injured victim helping you?"

"I told you, strong woman. And it wasn't like I had a lot of time, or a lot of options, once I remembered Billie was coming for you. Should've been coming for you."

There was one option, of course, one that didn't involve Dean doing something idiotic and reckless, that didn't risk him at all—but Sam doesn't bother saying that. Isn't sure he seriously believes it, not honestly, not anymore.

"I wish you hadn't done it," Sam says, because that, at least, is honest.

"Yeah, well, me, too. I wouldn't have, if you could've called sooner," Dean says. "Next time we go werewolf hunting, it's going to be somewhere with cell reception."

"Yes, because monsters are always so concerned with having 4G access."

"Hey, there are plenty of things hunting online these days. Welcome to the twenty-first century." Dean yawns, reaches for the lamp switch. "Now I really need to get some shut-eye, if we're going to get home tomorrow without me driving us off the road."

Sam doesn't ask how close they came to crashing this evening, before Dean stopped for the night. He does say, "I could drive."

"Not on those meds, you're not," Dean says. "And you're staying on them for at least another day. Until you stop gasping every time you breathe or turn your head."

"I'm not _gasping_ ," Sam says, forcing it out with the last air in his lungs rather than catching his breath, and tightening his diaphragm to compensate. The stitches pull, but the ache is more dull than piercing; thank goodness for fast-acting prescription drugs. They make lying down a less painful and more gratifying experience.

Though even in this upscale motel, the mattress isn't up to his now-established standards. And the sigils outlining the window pane can't match the security of the bunker's walls of concrete and sorcery.

Tonight, though, it's too late and he's too tired to care. Which is its own kind of peace, and Sam has learned to take what he can get.

He's closed his eyes, is sinking into heavy lethargy when Dean speaks, his voice floating to Sam through the darkness, disembodied and remote. "I got them out of the woods," his brother says. "Michelle—both of them. I got them to safety...well, safe enough, until he turned."

"I know," Sam says, a little surprised. Dean doesn't generally require validation, not when it comes to his job. But there's a hoarse, desperate edge to his voice. "I know you did, Dean."

"I mean, I did that first," Dean says. "Before I did anything about you."

"Oh," Sam says. "Good."

"...I almost didn't," Dean says, even more quietly. "And if I'd remembered then that Billie could be coming for you..."

"You would've saved them," Sam tells him. Because that's also true.

True for Dean, anyway. For the hunter he is; for who he is. He'd stumbled, but he's back on course now, walking that fine line.

If Dean had been the one lying on that cabin floor, bleeding out, breath stopped, heart stopped... And Sam has seen Billie at work, standing over corpses, hand reaching out. He'd have remembered.

His side twinges with every breath he takes. And maybe the only reason his body is breathing at all is because the devil is still hoping to lease it out. But Sam thinks he actually might've been the lucky one, this time around. Landed the easier job.

If the doctor hadn't managed to resuscitate Dean; if Billie had taken him—if Sam had finally made it back from the woods, slayed the werewolves, only to find...

Some things don't bear thinking about. And some things you have to think about—but later. In daylight, when you're not in pain and drugged and can fake some measure of rationality.

Now, Sam says, "Dean?"

And Dean says, "Yeah, Sammy, still here."

And just for now, that's enough. Sam shuts his eyes and lets himself drift to sleep.


End file.
